Tea at Trianon: The Ill-Fated Wedding Of Jarl Hákon Eiriksson

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

The Ill-Fated Wedding Of Jarl Hákon Eiriksson

From The Historian's Hut:

Eirik Hakonarson eventually sailed to the British Isles around the time when King Sweyn Forkbeard seized control of England in 1013. The jarl’s son, Hákon Eiriksson, stayed behind in Norway to see to matters there while his father was away. His father, however, would not return—Eirik Hakonarson died in 1013 of wounds he sustained in England.
Hákon Eiriksson, who succeeded to his father’s jarldom, did not have long to mourn. In 1014 or 1015, a Viking and mercenary named Olaf Haraldsson appeared in Norway to launch a bid for the Norwegian throne. Olaf (later called Saint Olaf) knew that the young jarl was a major obstacle in his path to power, so he targeted Hákon Eiriksson early. Olaf reportedly ambushed his opponent in a narrow waterway, and in the encounter that ensued, Hákon’s ship sank and he was captured. As the story goes, Olaf spared Hákon Eiriksson’s life in exchange for the jarl renouncing his authority in Norway. Whatever the case, Hákon survived the incident and fled to England, where he joined the ranks of his ascendant uncle, Canute the Great. This Canute (or Knut) became king of England in 1016, then king of Denmark in 1019, and he also decided to challenge Olaf Haraldsson for the throne of Norway.

In 1028, Canute the Great successfully used diplomatic and military pressure to usurp power in Norway from Olaf Haraldsson, who fled to his allies among the Swedes and the Rus. When Canute seized control of Norway, Hákon Eiriksson decided to sail back to his homeland to resecure his jarldom. His journey back to Norway, however, came at an awkward time, for Hákon had recently become engaged to be married. Nevertheless, he evidently left his fiancée behind in England while he and Canute toured their newly acquired Norway. (Read more.)